Suddenly I’m free – I can feel my dance, but not my body. The pain is gone.

I’m expanding, outside all containers.

We move in synchrony.

We are not many – we are one –

All are one with God, Allah.

My chanting echoes in my ears.

I hear my voice – yet not my voice –

Instead, I now hear it as the voice of God.

My heart is open, like my arms –

Wider, wider.

Angels pour into the void —

They’re filling me with God;

They carry me.

I only know the heart of God, the light of God.

The universe is love and joy.

My tears flow down my cheeks.

I am at peace!

Reflection

Seeking an out-of-body personal experience of God is not often high on my list of priorities. Like most of us, I live by my calendar — shopping, reading, studying, answering emails, doing the myriad daily activities that compose a modern life. Even in prayer and meditation, I’m often not really clear about myself in relation to God. I say words, I think thoughts, I feel this pain, that itch, the random twitch, the noises, smells, visual distractions…. I am myself, experiencing the solitary perceptions of an independent personality. I am very much of and in my body, no matter that I seek no-mind.

Today’s dance gave me a taste of disembodiment – of union with the divine, of bliss unmeasured – a taste of being wholly in and of the Spirit. I didn’t want to come back. That loving freedom was a golden nectar. It was home.

I wondered “Why come back?” And then I knew that my embodied life is a transcendent gift of God, a chance to learn, to act, to choose — not only to know but also to express the love of God. The distance embodiment gives me from God is a unique and irreplaceable opportunity to offer praise and worship. We are all God worshipping God. Freely choosing to do so is a miraculous gift of being in this lifetime. I am grateful.

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About Rev. Rosemary Hyde, Ph.D.

I am a grandmother, a classical homeopath, a mystical poet, and an interfaith minister. I also have a large, enduring place in my heart for Paris. I first spent time in Paris in 1961, as a Fulbright scholar. I remained in France for three years, living also in Toulouse and in Nancy. I have revisited France and Paris multiple times since then, and have come to know central Paris reasonably well. I grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where there were many Franco-Americans, and their language fascinated me. I was fortunate in 6th grade, when my family moved, to find myself in a Catholic French speaking girls' school, where I had the wonderful fortune of becoming bilingual. It still feeds my soul deeply, to visit Paris, speak French, and reconnect with the little French girl in me.
I am serving presently as co-minister at Unity Center of Peace in Chapel Hill, NC. I give talks one or two Sundays a month -- please go to the website, www.unitychapelhill.org, and sign up for the weekly e-news to learn what's going on -- special events, seasonal interfaith ceremonies, and Sunday themes and talks. My vision for the Unity Chapel Hill ministry and for myself is to become a loving, uniting presence in the lives of all those who cross paths with us. That's all there is, really -- loving presence. And so it is. Amen.
My goal as a minister is to add richness to life for those who resonate to more than one religious tradition or to none -- those with mixed religions as well as the unchurched, untempled, and unmosqued.
All of us, whatever our cultural allegiances, hunger for and need support in finding the transcendent joy that's ours to find in this earthly life. All of us need and want to celebrate beautifully the great and small milemarker moments. All of us crave the beauty of prayer as an expression of our participation in universal love. All of us wish to learn a greater vision, to see our lives opening to the Divine. All of us desire deeply to find serenity and peace that lasts no matter what happens today and tomorrow.
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